Revisiting my Covid Article from March 2020
First published: Thursday May 27th, 2021
In March 2020, I wrote a blog article called Reasons for Hope about the Coronavirus Pandemic. Let's just say that I was wrong about a lot of things. But I was in good company. From epidemiologists, to doctors, to politicians, Covid-19 made fools of us all. So let's take a look at the article, what I got right, and what I got wrong.
Statement 1. China Has Already Mostly Defeated Coronavirus
Rating: Mostly accurate
I'm going to say that this was actually... mostly true. It's true that China was almost certainly fudging the numbers. They had more cases and deaths than they admitted to, especially early on. But it does appear that China was able to mostly contain the initial outbreak and prevent further outbreaks from starting. Unfortunately, their success seems to be in large part driven by a top-down central government which strictly controls the lives of its citizens. The only other countries that have seen similar success are either islands like Australia or other authoritarian places.
Statement 2. South Korea Is Making Progress Too
Rating: Technically accurate
I'm not going to give myself too much credit here because "making progress" is a weasely statement. South Korea did initially seem to stop Covid in its tracks. By early May, cases had fallen to zero. But like almost every other country, the progress was temporary and new cases started appearing as soon as restrictions were eased.
Statement 3. Western Governments are Finally Responding
Rating: Technically accurate
I never anticipated just how large the government response to Covid would be. For an American such as myself, it was shocking to see the government dictate what a person could or could not do with their life. What I also didn't anticipate was how ineffective these measures would be. I assumed, like most people, that the pandemic would be largely ended after the first wave subsided. I thought lockdowns or other measures such as track and trace would prevent further outbreaks. After all, previous outbreaks such as SARS and Ebola had been successfully contained. This assumption proved to be very wrong.
And while reasonable people can argue about whether the lockdowns prevented the outbreak from being even worse, it's clear that they did not achieve their primary objective of ending the pandemic. U.S. states which had loose restrictions did not suffer higher per-capita casualties than ones with stronger restrictions. It may be that, to totally eliminate Covid, it would have been necessary to impose harsh and unprecedented restrictions that would have caused far more damage than the disease itself.
Statement 4. Testing Will Improve
Rating: Accurate
Finally one I got right, although this was a pretty obvious conclusion. It still took a lot longer than it should have to fix the testing shortages. Another problem was that free and easy testing didn't actual seem to slow the pandemic. The worst months in the United States and Europe occurred this winter when testing was universally available.
Statement 5. The Disease Is Probably Less Deadly That We Think
Rating: Accurate
In my original article, I estimated the infection fatality rate due to Covid at less than 1%. This turned out to be true for every country except for Japan (source: Nature).
Polls of U.S. citizens showed that average people vastly overestimated the risks of Covid, especially for the young.
Statement 6. It Barely Affects Kids
Rating: Mostly accurate
In the United States only about 0.05% of deaths with Covid occurred in people under the age of 17.
Statement 7. Medical Treatments Will Improve
Rating: Mixed
The success story here is obviously the vaccines which came out much faster than anticipated and seem to be largely effective at preventing the virus.
But I was wrong about improved treatments for Covid. I assumed that the medical industry would quickly discover therapies that would radically reduce the chance of death. And while there were some changes to medical care, it was far from drastic. Proposed medications such as Remdesivir or Hydroxychloroquine did not seem to be highly effective at treating the disease. I'm still surprised that a better treatment hasn't been found.
Statement 8. Wild Animal Markets Are Being Shut Down
Rating: Inaccurate
It didn't take long for this to be proved completely false. Less than one month after my article, consumers could once again purchase bats and dogs for consumption as food at China's famous wet markets.
Even more concerning, evidence is accumulating that the disease may not have had its origin in a wet market after all. The idea that Covid-19 originated as an accidental lab release was once dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory. No longer. This article published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists presents evidence that the virus was created during "gain of function" research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then, last week, news broke that three researchers at that facility became ill and sought hospital care in November 2019, just before the start of the outbreak.
We may never know the true source of the pandemic, but an accidental lab release now appears possible, even likely.
Statement 9. Warm Temperatures Might Help
Rating: Mostly accurate
Of all my statements, this one got me the most flack. In the end, I think it has turned out to be mostly true. Like the flu, Covid has emerged as a seasonal illness in northern countries.
There is one caveat to this. In extremely warm temperatures, people may tend to stay inside in air-conditioned spaces, which is ideal for the propagation of the virus.
Statement 10. It Could Have Been a Lot Worse
Rating: Accurate
Unless the virus mutates, less than 0.1% of the world's population will die from Covid-19. By comparison, the Spanish Flu killed somewhere between 1% and 5%. Other plagues, such as the Black Death were far worse. We got off easy. This time.
Anyways, that’s a nice blog! Despite I’m a child, it doesn’t means I need to stop taking care
and taking Ivermectin. :)I tried to do some research regarding the various lockdowns and responses to COVID around the world. I know Australia wasn't as strict as India, but they seemingly handled things very well. They had timely fiscal/monetary stimulants and limited transmission. From what I see, their economy is set to rebound because of this.
I watched Scott Morrison's speech, and what stood out is that he mentioned rebounding, keeping Australians healthy, and providing job support. When reading the transcript of Modi's address, it was more focused on how COVID would be an opportunity for India to turn the corner economically in the 21 century and become more self-reliant. Which doesn't even make sense, considering you're more likely to face a recession in a pandemic.
Unless we're saying that the already present effects of the pandemic are worsened (economics, social life, effect on daily lifestyle, etc.), which is fair game.
Granted, it would have been Trump running the show, so I'll curb my enthusiasm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee_and_Dog_Meat_Festival
Nevertheless, eating dog meat is not something unique to China and in fact was once quite common in the West as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat
I don't intend to pass judgment on eating traditional foods.
"During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation was widely spread claiming that ivermectin was beneficial for treating and preventing COVID-19. No reliable evidence exists to back up such claims."
So I'm not sure. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's record has been less than sterling throughout the course of the pandemic. I'll admit that it's possible Wikipedia is wrong here. For example, Wikipedia's article on the origins of Covid is outdated.
Still, without more data, my default position would be that Ivermectin is ineffective.
My parents had COVID-19 in late 2020, despite the negative tests. Maybe I even had it, but asymptomatically, since I didn't take the test. We took one Ivermectin tablet per month, depending on each person's weight (1 tablet basis, up to 30kg).
My father had a weaker COVID, with only a lack of smell and taste, because we took the medicine. My mother also had COVID, but she also had dengue fever (positive test) and became more debilitated, although everything is fine now. Ivermectin proves to be reliable, if taken in the right way.
It's not a short read, but you can glance at tables 1 & 2 for the comparisons I was talking about, and maybe they'll peak your interest in the compound. More examples are present from other countries as well (though few in developed nations I'll admit). The "reliable evidence" which wikipedia refers to, is probably a large-scale clinical trial in regards to covid-19 efficacy. That certainly doesn't exist, but with the evidence presented, it's difficult to understand why that study hasn't yet been undertaken. In any case, it's hard to argue that for countries with surging cases and without adequate vaccine supply, distributing ivermectin isn't likely worth the risk/reward tradeoff. It's been in use prophylactically (for parasites) since the 90's, side effects are mild and well documented, and even cheap to manufacture.
The fact that Australia (and New Zealand, and Taiwan) are islands is the sort of thing that seems like a common sense factor but doesn't really make much of a difference. Australia still had thousands of flights coming in and out every day up until the moment the government shut the border. Any country could have chosen to do the same. That's why it's called a border.
"Well, why didn't you get anything right?" --> They'd give a response --> "Would you say it has anything to do with the sources you're using?" --> response --> "What does that tell you about those sources?" --> response --> "In fact, what goes into making a good source?"...
At least then, your friend would be forced to think about how they do their research. Maybe after that, they'd start to have some doubts about where they get their information.
Someone could be an overweight, alcoholic, unemployed, homeless criminal who has failed at everything in their entire life and yet somehow believe that, when it comes to politics, other people should listen to them.
It's human nature.
Anyway point being none of the above things precludes you from being rational, educated, informed, intelligent, insightful, logical, or knowing what sound epistemology is. They might indicate a lower social status, though, which means fewer people would listen to you.
https://graphpaperdiaries.com/2017/08/20/the-real-dunning-kruger-graph/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
I did learn more. A lot more. And eventually learned enough to understand that my previous position(s) was wrong. And enough to understand why it was wrong. My confidence increased again.
Anyway, to me, several of the things that you have typed recently about politics reminded me of myself when I was in the place of "well everyone's got their own opinion and who knows who's right" .... and while there's nothing especially wrong with that position and it in a way is admirable in its humility, imagine saying that to a professor of evolutionary biology when he tells you the Earth is not 5000 years old.